The Pirate's Wish by Cassandra Rose Clarke - Sample Chapters

Cover: Sarah J Coleman

T H E P I R AT E ’ S C U R S E “Unique, heart-wrenching, full of mysteries and twists!”

Tamora Pierce, author of Alanna: The First Adventure and other Tortall novels “Its fluid prose, naturalistic dialogue and pace make The Assassin’s Curse supremely readable.

And in Ananna, the young offspring of pirate stock, we have a heroine both spirited and memorable.”

Stan Nicholls, author of the Orcs: First Blood trilogy “An inventive debut with a strong narrative voice, a glimpse of an intriguing new world.”

Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Shadows of the Apt series “Ananna of Tanarau is a delightfully irascible heroine, inhabiting a fascinating and fresh new world that I would love to spend more time in.

Pirate ships? Camels? Shadow dwelling assassins? Yes please! Can I have some more?”

Celine Kiernan, author of the Moorhawke trilogy “Inventive and individual storytelling about engaging and intriguing characters.”

Juliet E McKenna, author of the Hadrumal Crisis novels

an excerpt from THE PIRATE’S WISH

by Cassandra Rose Clarke Published June 2013 (everywhere – US/UK/RoW)

by Strange Chemistry, in paperback and ebook formats.

UK ISBN: 978-1-908844-27-9 US ISBN: 978-1-908844-28-6 EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-908844-29-3

Strange Chemistry (Angry Robot) An imprint of Osprey Group Distributed in the US & Canada

by Random House strangechemistrybooks.com twitter.com/strangechem

Copyright © Cassandra Rose Clarke 2013 All rights reserved. However, feel free to share this sample chapter with anyone you wish. You may post this on your blog too, if you can wrangle the (easy) code. And if you like this sample, buy the book.

CHAPTER ONE

“Do you feel that?” Naji asked.

“I feel cold.” I rubbed my arms over the worn-down fabric of my coat sleeves. Me and Naji’d been stranded on the Isles of the Sky for longer than I could keep track, thanks to him throwing the Ayel’s Revenge off course while we were headed to Qilar, and the weather did a number on my clothes. I planned to march down to the Wizard Eirnin’s house to see about getting some new things later today.

“You’re always cold.” Naji leaned forward and squinted out at the sea, his features twisting from the rough scars lining the left side of his face. We were sitting outside the shack the two of us shared, knotting bundles of pine needles to re-thatch the roof. “No, this is… something’s on the air. Something disruptive.”

“Disruptive?” I tossed my bundle of pine needles on the sand. “The hell does that mean?”

“Are you still wearing your protection charm?”

At that, I gave him a withering look and yanked back my coat collar to show him. “I ain’t never taken

it off before. Don’t know why I’d start now.”

He didn’t answer, which wasn’t much of a surprise.

He’d been in a mood the last few weeks – at least, that’s what I would guess, I’d stopped keeping track of the days awhile back – mostly cause him and Eirnin had gotten themselves tangled up in a feud. As near as I could tell, it started when Naji was casting one of his blood magic spells. He had a whole mess of them going: some to protect us from the magic of the Isles and some to keep me hidden from the Mists, that whole other world full of lords and monsters who kept trying to break through to ours.

Now, he’d been casting those spells the whole time we’d been on the island, ever since he got his strength back, but this particular spell had mingled with one Eirnin had going and messed it up. Since then, the two of ’em had been at a feud like a pair of noble families in some Empire story.

It went pretty much like this: when his spell failed, Eirnin retaliated against Naji, sending a swarm of droning gnats down to our shack one evening. I managed to get away since they weren’t after me, and I sat on the sand and watched ’em swirl in a dark cloud around Naji. Not biting him or anything, just annoying him. It took almost two days before he dispelled ’em completely using magic, and by that point I was sleeping out on the beach just to get away from the noise. Then Naji marched down to Eirnin’s house as soon as he was free from the gnats and cast some kind of long-term binding charm that made it pour rain for six days straight. Eirnin cleared it up, thank Kaol, but who the hell knew what they’d get up

to next. Probably ruin my day, whatever it was.

“I don’t like this.” Naji dropped his pine needle bundle into his lap and stared up at the sky, which was gray and cloudy like always. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing the swirl of tattoos on his skin. “Stay close to the shack for the next few days.”

Well, blood and saltwater. There went my trip to Eirnin’s house. And I really wanted some new clothes.

“Does your head hurt?” I asked.

Naji glanced at me. “No,” he said. “It’s just… as a precaution.”

“Right. A precaution.” I nodded. If his head didn’t hurt, then that meant the curse wasn’t activated and I wasn’t in danger, which meant I could sneak off while he was fishing, like I’d planned to originally. “Is it… it’s not the Mists, is it?”

“The Mists?” Naji shook his head. “No. This is different. Something with the island.”

I shivered. Course, his magic had kept us free of the side effects of living on the Isles of the Sky for awhile now.

“Something’s changed,” he added.

“Something’s always changing on this damn island,” I said. “The trees, the path in the woods – the freaking sunrise.” I finished up the last of my pine needles. “There, done. I’ll thatch up the roof while you’re fishing.”

Naji blinked at me, then pushed aside his own pine needles. “Maybe I shouldn’t–” “What? No! I’m starving. And, last I checked, fish is all we got to eat.”

Naji sighed. “Stay in the shack.”

“I’ll stay on the shack.”

“Ananna, you know I can’t concentrate when you do that.”

I frowned at him. “I ain’t gonna fall! How many times I got to tell you–” “As many as it takes.” He stood up and dusted the sand from his own clothes, which were worse off than mine, hanging in tatters around his arms and legs.

Eirnin was only willing to trade clothes with me. “If I feel the slightest suggestion of pain,” Naji said, “I’m coming back to the island. Fish or no.”

I slumped up against the shack. “Fine. But we’re cooking that fish before I thatch the roof. Don’t blame me if it rains.”

He didn’t say anything, only unhooked his scabbard from around his waist and tossed it to me, then stepped into the shadows of a pine tree and disappeared. I wrapped the scabbard around my hips, the sword a reassuring presence at my side.

For a moment I stood there on the sand, listening to the wind and the sea. Off in the distance the bonfire flickered golden. I didn’t look directly at it. Naji’d set it alight when we first arrived, and it was a terrible, magical thing. Blood magic. Sometimes Naji would go out at night and stand in the fire’s glow, and the next morning he would wake up with dark circles under his eyes. It must’ve been draining him, bit by bit. I grew up around magic, though I can’t do it much myself, but Mama’s magic never hurt her, never kept her up at night. But then, she didn’t do blood magic.

At least the fire stayed lit even through the worst of the thunderstorms, and hopefully someday someone

would see it. I still hoped that somebody would be Marjani, who’d tried to save us from being marooned in the first place. The captain didn’t listen to her reasoning, but she’d leaned in close to my ear that moment before the rowboat dropped me and Naji into the sea and promised she’d find a way to come back for us. The memory was one of the things keeping me going day to day.

I gathered up the pine needles and carted them into the shack, dumping them in a pile in the far corner from the fire. I knew Naji well enough to know that climbing on the roof would really hurt him – that damn curse, thinking me scrambling up on the roof was somehow a danger. His curse was that he had to protect me from harm. As far as I can tell, it was a bit of a joke from the northern witch who cast it after Naji went on a mission to her village. He’s an assassin, a member of a secret order called the Jadorr’a, and he was hired to kill me once. I accidentally saved his life and now, thanks to that curse, I had to listen to him nag me every time I wanted to get some work done.

Course, he had said the disruption, or whatever it was, hadn’t activated the curse at all.

Which meant I should be able to make it to Eirnin’s house and back before he returned from fishing.

Now, Naji would know where I’d been, but maybe I could cajole Eirnin into getting me some clothes for Naji. It’d be tough, but I was willing to clean out his hearth again.

I didn’t have anything better to do anyway.

So I double-checked my charm – still there, hanging on a loop of fabric, just like I’d shown Naji earlier –

and set off into the forest with Naji’s sword at my side.

The woods shimmered in the gray sunlight. It was cold, the way it always was, but walking helped warm me up some.

It took me shorter than last time to make it to Eirnin’s house. I noticed that with him. Each time the path seems to shrink, and I don’t know if it’s magic or if it’s just cause I know my way better. Tough to say with wizards.

Whatever the reason, Eirnin’s house appeared quicker than I expected. The garden was blooming, big red and orange flowers bobbing a little in the breeze. The air crackled, like a storm was about to roll in from the ocean.

Something disruptive.

I touched my charm again. After so long on the island I knew danger didn’t have to look like what I expected. Naji would probably tell me to turn and run back to the shack, but then, Naji wasn’t right about everything all the time. Much as he liked to think otherwise.

So I walked up the stone pathway, my hand curled tight around the sword, and kept watch for anything out of the ordinary: shadows moving through the trees, or a curl of gray mist. I prayed I wouldn’t see the gray mist.

I didn’t see anything.

I knocked on Eirnin’s door. No answer. A chill rippled through me, but then, Eirnin had been known not to answer if the mood didn’t suit him. I knocked again, and then shouted, “Eirnin! It’s me! I’m here about some clothes!”

Nothing.

At this point, the dread was pooling in the bottom of my stomach, and the forest seemed full of sneaking terrors, though I couldn’t see any of them outright.

Part of me wanted to turn back and the other part of me didn’t want to go anywhere near the woods.

I pounded hard on the door, and this time, it creaked open.

I stopped, lifted the sword a little. A scent like flowers drifted out from inside the house. Dead flowers. Rotting flowers.

“Eirnin?” I called out, nudging the door open further. I stepped inside, sword lifted. It was dark. The air was colder than it was outside, as cold as the ice storms in the north, and it felt wrong somehow – empty, hollow.

When I stepped into the main room, the darkness erupted.

Shapes poured out of the dead hearth, dark shadows that slid and undulated along the walls.

Moaning filled up the room, the moaning and wailing of a thousand echoing voices. I couldn’t move. The darkness slid around me, thick and oily, smelling of decay and magic.

And then a pale figure moved into the room, transparent and glowing. A ghost.

It looked at me, and although its face was stripped of humanity, like all ghosts, I recognized its features immediately.

“Eirnin,” I said.

The ghost opened its mouth and a stream of ululating syllables poured out. It was the language of

the dead. I’d heard it once before, when a sea-ghost boarded Papa’s boat and tried to pull us all under.

I screamed and found the strength to break through the hold of the angry magic that Eirnin had left behind when he died. I raced out of the house, swinging my sword through the thick shadows. They shrieked when I cut them, and their cuts splattered spots of darkness across my hands and arms.

I burst out into the garden. The forest had stilled.

Behind me, I could hear the rattle and screams of creatures in the house, and I didn’t stop to contemplate on what had killed Eirnin. I just ran. I ran out of the garden and into the woods, and I wasn’t even out of sight of the house when I slammed into Naji’s chest.

“I told you to stay at the shack!” he roared, dragging me to my feet.

“I’m trying!” I shouted back.

He dragged me into the shadow of a tree, wrapped his arm across my chest, and melted us both into shadow.

A heartbeat later we stood at the edge of the forest, the beach flowing away from us to the edge of the island. Naji slumped up against a nearby pine tree, and for the first time I noticed how pale and waxy he was, and my heart twisted up and I had to stop myself from running over to him and throwing my arms around his shoulders.

“I didn’t take off the charm,” I said.

“I see that.” Naji closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “You realize what that was, correct? What you felt the need to stumble into?”

“Eirnin’s dead.” I sat down at the doorway to our shack. “I saw his ghost.” I didn’t have a lot of love for Eirnin, truth be told, but the fact that he was no more for this world gave me the shivers.

“What were you doing at his house?”

“Getting new clothes.”

Naji glared at me.

“I was gonna try and get some for you!”

His face softened a little at that. “I did warn you.”

“No, you didn’t. You said something on the island had changed. And what in hell does that mean?” I kicked at the sand. “What was all that stuff, anyway?

You know what I’m talking about, right? The shadows pouring out of the hearth–” “It was his magic, released when he died.” Naji straightened up and stepped away from the tree. He looked better, which was something of a relief: it meant I wasn’t in danger no more. “It has to burn away before it’s safe to go back to his house. Which could take months. I don’t know. Years, maybe.”

“What killed him?”

“I’ve no idea.” Naji frowned. “Perhaps you should stay in the shack for the next few days. Until we figure out the cause–” “What about you?” I said. “Why do I got to be locked away like some princess in a story?”

Naji glared at me. “You know why.”

I turned away from him, fuming. His damn curse.

“Ain’t fair,” I muttered.

“None of this is fair,” Naji said, and he stopped pacing long enough to collect his sword. “There’s a fish in the shack waiting for you to clean it.”

That was something, at least.

Naji gave me a dark look. “You might as well get used to it.”

“What, fish? Trust me, I’m plenty used to fish.”

“No,” he said. “Letting me protect you.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.” I turned away from him and stepped into the shack. A huge flat halibut was laid out next to the hearth, a single glassy eye staring unseeing up at the ceiling.

“And yet you act as if it’s the first time you’ve heard it every time I remind you that you need to stay safe.”

I pulled out my knife – another gift from Eirnin, although this was, admittedly, one he hadn’t known he’d given me – and shoved it up under the fish scales.

Naji didn’t think his curse could be broken, cause he had to complete three impossible tasks in order to do so: hold the princess’s starstones skin against stone, create life out of violence, and experience true love’s kiss. Thing was, I knew at least one of the three, the last one, wasn’t impossible at all. Cause I loved him. I loved him more fiercely than I’d loved anyone. But he didn’t love me back, and I ain’t one to embarrass myself needlessly.

Naji stepped into the shack behind me and shut the door.

“Maybe we should concern ourselves with figuring out who killed Eirnin,” I said, fish scales sticking to my hands.

“Maybe we should,” Naji said.

But neither of us got to talking.

I spent the next day or two in the shack, like Naji

asked. He strung up strands of tree vines and red berry leaves and muttered his charms while I sulked in the corner and watched him. Just cause I was in love with him didn’t mean I wasn’t gonna resent him for locking me away like I was useless, or that I wanted to spend every moment of the day hanging around him.

Course, I understood that if he hadn’t locked me away he would hurt, a pain in his head or his joints, but I still didn’t think I was in as much danger as he believed. Just as long as I stayed away from Eirnin’s house, right? And there was no way in the deep blue sea I’d go back there.

Those two days were boring as hell, which was exactly what I expected. Naji left to go fetch water or to catch fish and gather berries for us to eat. I sat in the doorway, my knife balanced on my knee, and tried not to look at the bonfire.

By the third day of imprisonment, I was going batty.

“You ain’t seen nothing!” I said to Naji, after a week had passed. He’d let me sit just outside the shack that day, and though the air was colder than usual the sun had managed to burn away most of the clouds. “I ain’t seen nothing, either. Probably Eirnin’s heart just gave out. He was old.”

Naji glanced at me. “His heart didn’t give out.”

“How do you know?”

“I went to his house.”

“What!”

“The day after you found him. I wanted to ensure I wasn’t being overly cautious.” He looked at me pointedly. “I’m not, by the way.”

Despite my irritation, a little prickle of fear trembled

down my spine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Naji said, “I spoke to his ghost.”

I shivered and wrapped my arms around my knees.

“Nobody speaks to ghosts.”

“The Jadorr’a can.”

I knew he was gonna say that. Any pirate would tell you attempting to learn the language of the dead is a grave mistake – about as grave a mistake as sailing to the Isles of the Sky. Naji had a long history of ignoring pirates’ wisdom.

“Well?” I asked.

“He was killed by a monster.”

“A monster?” I frowned out at the ocean. “What sort of monster? He couldn’t have been more specific?”

“The dead rarely are.”

I slumped up against the side of the shack. “You’re never gonna let me out again, are you?”

“Not until I determine where the monster is and how to destroy it.” Naji glanced at me. “Thank you for understanding.”

There was an undercurrent of warmth in his voice that made my toes curl up inside my boots, and I looked away from him, over at the beach curving into the forest. I knew I should speak, but I didn’t know what to say, so I muttered something about knowing how much it hurt him. As soon as I spoke I was overwhelmed by that secret I carried, the potential power of my kiss. That happened sometimes. I just got to thinking about it at the wrong moments.

Naji stood up in a shower of sand. “The sun’s going behind the clouds,” he said.

“Oh, hell.”

“But it makes it easier for me move through the woods. We’re running low on berries.”

“And running high on monsters. Maybe you could see about taking care of that nonsense first?”

Naji’s eyes brightened a little, and he said, “I plan on doing that, as well.”

I usually liked it when his eyes brightened like that, but today it annoyed me, like my having to spend days in the shack was amusing to him.

“I guess I have to go inside.”

“If you want me to actually accomplish anything, then yes.”

I sighed, stood up, and did as he asked. The air already felt stale. At least the sun was gone. Nothing worse than wasting those few precious moments of sunlight inside.

Naji hung up a pine cone charm in the doorway but didn’t leave his sword, which cheered me up a bit, since it meant he might actually have plans to hunt down this monster. I still had my doubts about a monster-monster, some beastie roaming the forest. It seems like we would have seen it already. The isles certainly threw enough horrors our way in those first few days we were stranded, before Naji had his powers back in full – all those eerie overnight transformations, trees into stones and stones into sand, and the weird lights that would blink at us out of the darkness of the woods, and the shimmer on the air that Naji told me was the residue from Mists magic. But not once did the island resort to a proper monster.

I stretched out on the nest of ferns I used for a bed and stared up at the ceiling. This was, I had discovered, the most entertaining way to pass my time.

Trying to count the number of damn pine needles I’d used to thatch the roof. I got up to fifty-seven before I gave up.

The sky had turned darker since Naji left, and I could smell the rain on the air, waiting up in the clouds to fall. I sat up, mussing my pallet a little, and paced around the shack once or twice. Then I went to get a drink of water.

The bucket was empty.

“Damn him!” Naji always forgot to fill the bucket.

Some Jadorr’a trick of never having to drink anything, apparently.

I scowled and kicked at the bucket. It clanged against the floor. I wondered how long till Naji returned. If he was just fishing, it probably wouldn’t be long, but if he was off monster hunting– How dangerous could it be for me to walk down to the water spring?

I mean, before Eirnin dropped dead in his house I’d gone down to the spring a couple times a day. I’d never run into any trouble. The two biggest dangers had been the Mists and the island itself, and Naji’s magic kept us protected from both. Why wouldn’t it protect me from some island monster?

And I had my knife, which I could throw well enough if necessary.

And nobody ever died from a headache.

I picked up the bucket and slid it into the crook of my arm. Then I walked over to the door and peered

out.

Thickening clouds, a deserted beach.

He probably wouldn’t even know I was gone.

I reached up and touched the charm for good luck, and then I stepped outside.

I made it to the spring without incident, which left me feeling more than a little smug. The woods were still and the sky thick with the threat of rain. Nothing moved but me: no shadows, no creeping curls of mist, no beasties watching me from the trees. Even the spring seemed calm, nearly stagnant – just a few faint gurgles let me know it was still running.

I dropped the bucket into the spring and took a long drink. It tasted steely and cold like always. Then I filled the bucket to the brim and stood to walk back to the shack.

Something small and sharp zipped past my head, so close I felt the swish of air from its movement, and impaled itself into a nearby tree. I dropped the bucket, water sloshing over my feet and legs, and slammed against the ground. I was tense and ready to defend myself, but at the same time I couldn’t help thinking: damn it, Naji was right.

I scanned the glimmering light-shadows of the chiming woods.

Nothing.

Real slow, I reached back for the knife. My fingers wrapped around the handle. Every muscle in my body was ready for a fight.

“Stop right there, human.”

I stopped. The voice wasn’t like any voice I’d heard,

not even from the people of the Mists. It had a rhythm like bells, rippling and cascading, fabric fluttering in the wind, high and chiming. Oddly feminine.

“And kindly remove your hand from your weapon.”

I obliged, sticking my hand back under my chest.

Everything was so damn still. My lungs didn’t want to work.

“Who are you?” I choked out. “You from the Mists?”

Laughter filled up the forest, a deep resonant clanging like the bells on the clock tower of the Empire Palace.

“I’m afraid not, girl-human. I am very much a part of your world.”

The monster.

I pushed myself up on my hands, moving as slow as possible, listening for the zip of another dart. I leaned back on my heels, keeping my eye on the woods.

“You gonna let me see you?”

“Perhaps. Are you a friend of the wizard-human?”

“The wizard-human? Uh, you mean Naji or Eirnin?” Sometimes playing dumb is the best course of action.

“Naji? I do not know that name. But Eirnin – aye, that’s the one I speak of.”

“I know him,” I said, not wanting to commit myself as his friend or foe. Who knew with monsters?

A branch broke off in the chiming woods, and I tensed up, ready to grab for my knife.

“That does not answer my question.”

“Well, I don’t know him well, not well enough to

say–” Another dart zoomed past my head. I ducked back down.

“I ain’t seen him but a couple times!” I shouted into the dirt. “He gave me some clothes and helped my friend out with his curse – well, not helped exactly, more told him what to do next – and other’n that he might as well not exist to me.”

The speaker didn’t give me an answer. I kept my head down and tried not to let on how scared I was.

For a second I wondered about Naji, if he was hurting real bad, if he was coming to save me.

I wondered how pissed he was gonna be.

“So you have no loyalties to the wizard-human?”

“Ain’t got no loyalties to anybody,” I said, even though I knew it to be a lie even as I spoke.

A shadow rippled across the forest, and I heard footsteps, the crackle and snap of a figure moving over the fallen leaves of the forest floor.

“You may sit up, girl-human. I will not shoot again.”

I ain’t so stupid as to take someone on her word for a claim like that, so I moved slow as I could, inching up a little at a time. I was halfway up to sitting when I caught a glimpse of the creature speaking to me, and it took every ounce of willpower not to curl back up into a ball.

The speaker was a manticore.

Now, I’d seen a manticore or two before, locked away in cages, and those were frightening enough. But I ain’t never heard one speak – I didn’t even think they could. And this one was bigger than the caged ones,

only about a foot shorter than me even though she stood on four legs instead of two.

She padded up close to me and leaned down and sniffed with her pretty human-looking nose, then settled down on her haunches, her scaly wings pressed flat against her back, her tail curling up into a point behind her head. Hadn’t been darts she’d flung at me, but spines, and poisonous ones at that, if the stories were anything to go by. I kept my eye on that tail.

“I only shot at you when I thought you were an ally of the wizard-human,” she said. “I do not care for the taste of girl-humans.”

“Oh. Alright.” I stood up, slow and careful. The manticore followed me with her eyes, which were the color of pressed gold.

“Perhaps you can help me,” she said.

Well, that stunned me into silence.

“Do you have a way off the island?”

It took me a minute to find my voice, and even when I did all I could do was stammer out the most drawnout “no” in the history of time.

The manticore looked disappointed.

“What do you need to leave the island for?” I asked, mostly in a whisper.

“I’d like to go home, of course,” she said. “The wizard-human had kept me imprisoned for almost three life-cycles. I made my escape four days ago.”

She licked at her paw. My stomach twisted around and I stumbled backward, one foot splashing into the spring.

“And how…” I said. “How did you–”

“I ate him.”

She said it all matter-of-fact, like we were bartering trade in a day market. Sweat prickled out of my skin.

“I told you, girl-human, I do not care for the taste of your sort’s flesh.” She sniffed. “If you do not have a way off the island, why did you come here at all?”

“We were marooned.” I hadn’t meant to tell her, but I was so unnerved it spilled out anyway.

“We? There is another human?” She smiled, which was terrifying, her mouth all full of teeth. “A girlhuman or a boy-human?”

I didn’t want to answer that. So I changed the subject.

“I may be able to get you off the island,” I said, quick as lightning. “But you’ll have to wait.”

“You said you had no manner of escape.”

“I don’t. But a friend – a girl-human, like me, she might be bringing a ship and crew.”

The manticore’s face lit up. She fluffed out her mane. “And this friend-girl-human would be able to take me to the Island of the Sun?” “Sure.” I’d heard of the Island of the Sun. It’s in the west, not lined up with any of the major shipping ports so not much use to anybody. Except, apparently, manticores. Papa’s crew always said it was a wasteland. “But you’ll have to wait till she gets here, like I said. And I don’t know when that’ll be.”

“That is acceptable.” The manticore stood up and arched her spine, wings fluttering. Her tail curled above her back. “I shall accompany you back to your dwelling.”

Naji. My stomach twisted again. Hopefully he hadn’t come back yet, and I could find a way to warn him. At least I didn’t seem to really be in danger – that would keep him from swooping in to save me.

“It’s small,” I said. “It’ll remind you of your prison, I’m sure of it. You’d be better to live out in the woods…” I swept my hand around and the trees rustled.

“Don’t be absurd, girl-human. You will leave me when the friend-girl-human comes. Show me the way.”

My brain spun round and round. All I could think about was Naji skulking in front of the fire, unaware that I was bringing in a monster keen on eating him.

Was this how it all ended? Me not being able to outtalk a manticore and Naji winding up as its dinner?

“Why do you dally?” The manticore’s voice echoed through my skull.

“Uh, I need to get some clean water. Hold on.” I felt around in the underbrush for the water bucket. The manticore regarded me with her big gold eyes. I dipped the bucket into the spring, and watched as the water flooded in. Every now and then I dipped the bucket so the water flowed back out again, blocking the manticore’s view with my back while I did it. All the while I scrambled to come up with some way out of this mess. Could you strike a deal with a manticore?

Stories always made ’em out as monsters, teeth and claws and nothing else.

“This is taking too long,” the manticore said.

“Sorry.” My heart pounded. I let the bucket fill completely and then stood up. “Look, you gotta promise me something if I’m gonna help you off the

island.”

“A promise?” The manticore smiled again, teeth flashing. I regretted my words immediately.

“Look, if we’re gonna help you, me and my friend, you can’t run around eating every man – uh, every boy-human – we come across, do you understand?”

“No,” the manticore said. “You would starve me?”

“Of course not! But you’ll have to be, ah, selective.”

The manticore unfurled her tail, the tip of the spine glistening. “I’m always selective with my meals,” she said. “I only ate the wizard-human out of desperation.

I have never cared for the flavor of his sort. Much too stringy.”

“Uh, that’s not exactly what I meant…”

The manticore curled up her lip into a toothy little sneer.

“Why don’t you just ask me before you eat anyone?

In exchange for getting you off the island?”

“I can agree to those terms.”

“And you have to not eat the guy if I say no.”

For a moment the manticore pouted. Then she licked a paw and ran it over her mane. “We shall see.”

Good enough. And if she didn’t like the taste of the Wizard Eirnin, maybe she wouldn’t have no interest in eating Naji, neither.

We walked side by side back to the shack on the beach. I sure as hell wasn’t letting her walk behind me, though she didn’t seem to much care one way or the other. She moved real quick even considering her size, though branches snapped, and leaves and pine cones showered over us every time she knocked into a tree.

She made more noise than me or Naji ever did.

When we came to the shack, I smelled fish and wild onions frying on the hearth. I stopped. He came home, found me gone, and started cooking?

And then my heart started pounding again, cause now I had to find a way to warn him.

The manticore stopped outside the shack. “You are correct,” she said. “This is much too small for me.”

I prayed to Kaol and every other goddess I knew that Naji would stay inside. “Let me go in first, let him know–” “Him?” One of her eyebrows arched up. She ran her thin pink tongue over her perfect lady’s lips.

“You promised you’d ask,” I said, and then I bolted inside, slamming the door shut. Naji looked up at me.

“I really expected you to do that sooner,” he said.

“What?” My breath was coming too fast, and I tried to rein it so he wouldn’t think anything was wrong.

“Run off. I didn’t think I could truly keep you locked in the shack.” He went back to stirring our meal. “I assume you went to get water? It seems like it was an uneventful trip.”

He looked at me again, and I could only stare back at him, stricken.

He frowned, and his eyes darkened. “What’s wrong?”

I set the water down in its place beside the hearth and tried to come up with the words. Course, I didn’t get the chance, cause the manticore bounded into the shack, damn near knocking the door off the hinges.

Naji was crouched in fighting stance with his knife drawn before I even saw him move.

“Ananna,” he hissed. “My sword.”

I picked the sword up from where it was propped up against the wall and tossed it at him, but I kept my eyes on the manticore. “You promised,” I said.

Naji whipped his head around at me.

“Yes, but you did not tell me you had a Jadorr’a in your stone-nest.”

She said “Jadorr’a” the way I might’ve said “sweet lime drink” or “sugar-roses”.

“Ananna, what have you done?” Naji asked me, his voice low. He sounded angry, which if he was like any other man meant he was scared.

The manticore let out a little grumbly noise and crouched low like a cat about to pounce.

“Kaol, couldn’t you just eat some fish like a normal cat?” I shouted.

But both of ’em acted like I hadn’t said nothing.

And then the manticore’s pretty human face twisted up in a grimace. “Jadorr’a!” she said. “You’ve been cursed.”

Neither me or Naji moved.

“You hide the smell well, but… there, there it is again.” She shook her head, mane flying out in a big golden puff.

“You can’t eat him if he’s cursed?” I said.

“Of course not! It taints the flavor of the meat and will pass onto me, and besides which, from the smell of it, this is not a curse I want to possess.” She sniffed the air again.

“So, you’re not going to eat him?” I said.

“Not until the curse is lifted.” She sniffed once more, her nose wrinkling up at the brow. “Three impossible tasks,” she said. She turned to Naji. “I shall help you.”

Naji looked at a loss for words, which might’ve been funny in any other circumstance.

The manticore sat back on her haunches. “It’s very warm in your stone-nest.”

“We have a fire going,” I told her.

Naji shot me a dirty look.

“You promise you ain’t gonna eat him till his curse is lifted?”

The manticore shuddered. “I told you, I cannot abide the flavor of cursed flesh. It tastes half-rotted.”

Naji stayed in fighting stance.

“Girl-human, you were correct in assuming that I would find your stone-nest too similar to the walls of the wizard-human’s prison. I shall make a nest nearby.

Is that acceptable?”

I didn’t dare look at Naji when I answered “yes”.

The manticore nodded and backed out the door, the snap and stomp of her footsteps drifting through the cracked stone walls.

Naji finally let down his knife and sword. He turned toward me. Kaol, I wanted to run out onto the beach and dive into the cold black sea. Anything to get away from the expression on his face.

“What–” “She bullied me!” I said. “She asked if I knew a way off the island and I was trying to keep her from finding you and – and eating you and–” Naji held up one hand.

“You don’t have a way off the island.”

“I will when Marjani shows up. Look, she doesn’t eat women, alright? And she won’t eat you cause of the curse, and we can’t break that till we leave. So

Marjani takes us to the Island of the Sun and we drop off the manticore and then we fix your curse.”

Naji stared at me. “My curse is unbreakable,” he said.

“That ain’t true.” Sadness washed over me, and I wondered what would happen if I kissed him right then, and showed him at least one of the tasks wasn’t impossible.

“It is.” He sighed. “At least I know I won’t die in the jaws of a manticore. Although I can’t believe you brought that creature here.”

“I didn’t have no choice! What the hell was I supposed to do? She kept shooting spines at me.”

Naji looked at me sideways. “She wasn’t going to hurt you.”

“Yeah, but how I was supposed to know that?”

Outside, the manticore roared, and it sounded like a trumpet announcing the winner of the horse races in Lisirra. Naji tossed his sword onto the table and looked defeated.

NOW READ ON… THE PIRATE’S WISH

by Cassandra Rose Clarke

320 pp paperback and ebook On sale everywhere: June 2013

more?

strangechemistrybooks.com

Cassie

cassandraroseclarke.com

also

The Assassin’s Curse

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